"'Upon this point, and considering the aim and final object of these revelations and apparitions, the nature of the matters revealed, and the quality of your person, the Church pronounces your revelations and visions to be fraudulent, seductive, pernicious, and proceeding from the evil spirit of the devil.'"
Canon Maurice stops for a moment in order that the gravity of the first charge be properly weighed and appreciated by Joan Darc. But the words that she has just heard carry her back to the days of her childhood, days of peace that flowed in the midst of the sweet enjoyments of her family. She forgets the present and becomes absorbed in the recollection of her infancy, a recollection at once sweet and bitter to her.
Canon Maurice (proceeds to read)—"'Secondly: Joan, you said that your King, having recognized you by your signs as truly sent by God, gave you men of arms to do battle with. You said that St. Marguerite and St. Catherine accompanied you to Chinon and other places, where they guided you with their advice.
"'The Church pronounces this declaration mendacious and derogatory to the dignity of the saints and the angels.
"'Thirdly: Joan, you said that you recognized the angels and the saints by the advice that they gave you. You said that you believed the apparitions to be good, and that you believe that as firmly as you do in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is an outrage to the Divinity.
"'The Church declares that those are not determining signs to recognize the saints by; that your belief is temerarious, your claim braggard, and that you err in the faith. You are outside of the pale of the communion of the faithful.'"
Recalled from her revery, Joan Darc listens to this new accusation without understanding it. In what did she brag? In what was she temerarious? In what did she lie? She recognized the saints by the wisdom of their counsel when they said to her: "Joan, be pious, behave as a wise girl; heaven will support you in driving the foreigners from Gaul." The promise of her saints is verified. She has won brilliant victories over the enemy of France. Where is the lie, the temerariousness, the bragging?
Canon Maurice (reads)—"'Fourthly: Joan, you said you were endowed with the faculty of knowing certain things that lay in the future, and that you recognized your King without ever having seen him before.
"'The Church pronounces you convicted of presumption, arrogance and witchcraft.'"
Without concerning herself about the imputation of witchcraft, that seems to her senseless, Joan Darc sighs at the recollection of her first interview at Chinon with "the gentle Dauphin of France," when, drawn towards him out of commiseration for his misfortunes and devoted to the royalty, Charles VII received her with a miserable buffoonery, thereupon imposed upon her, upon so chaste a girl, an infamous examination, and then sent her to a council of ecclesiastics assembled in Poitiers, who, struck by the sincerity of her responses, declared her divinely inspired. And, now, here is another set of priests, speaking in the name of the same Church, and treating her as a witch!